After pulling out to a 2-0 lead in the second period, the Senators let it slip away in a frustrating 3-2 OT loss to the Philadelphia Flyers in front of 14,334 at the Canadian Tire Centre.

Had it not been for a stellar effort by Mike Condon, the Senators wouldn’t have got to the extra period in the first place. Claude Giroux scored his second of the night only 40 seconds into overtime by firing it past Condon to hand Ottawa its second straight loss on home ice.

“They say a two-goal lead is the most dangerous lead in hockey,” said Condon, who made 29 stops. “We give up one and then I thought they got some life. I thought we played pretty well we just didn’t come out on top in the overtime.”

The Senators were without No. 1 goalie Craig Anderson. He was given a personal leave of absence Wednesday to be with his wife Nicholle, who is starting treatment for throat cancer at a New York-based facility. It’s possible Anderson could miss Saturday’s game as well and rejoin the team in Pittsburgh Sunday.

Already without injured winger Bobby Ryan (finger) and defenceman Marc Methot (lower body), the Senators lost Binghamton call-up Fredrik Claesson with a lower body ailment in the third period. They finished the game with five defencemen for the second straight game.

Mike Hoffman and Ryan Dzingel were able to beat Flyers goalie Steve Mason on the 20 shots he faced in regulation while Michael Del Zotto and Giroux scored on Condon, who was making his first start since Nov. 17.

“Our start was what we talked about this morning,” Hoffman said. “We wanted to start strong and going up by two (goals) is something we can be proud of but obviously there’s 60 minutes and sometimes 65 and we’ve got to have a better full effort throughout the whole game.”

After pulling out to a 2-0 lead, the Senators were completely outplayed and outshot 14-4 as the Flyers tied it up 2-2 through 40 minutes.

Exactly a minute after Philly got on the board, Del Zotto tied it up at 17:50 of the second by firing a shot past Condon that he had no chance of stopping.

He could have used a little help from his teammates.

Giroux got the Flyers on the board by taking a pass and beating Condon on the stick side on the 12th shot he faced in the second to pull Philly to within a goal at 2-1.

“They got some momentum and then the ice just seemed to be tilted in their direction,” Hoffman said.

There was a belief that Giroux’s goal may have been offside but the Senators couldn’t ask for a review because coach Guy Boucher had used the club’s timeout earlier in the period to give his skaters a rest after a long shift.

“You’d like to save it but that was more than emergency,” Boucher said. “I looked at it and they were in the (defensive) zone way too long. We’re talking way too long and they were just dead.

“If they would have dropped the puck it would have most likely been a goal. On those ones you have to (do it). You don’t want to but you have to. When the emergency is there you use the emergency.”

The Senators pulled out to the two-goal lead on the strength of Dzingel’s sixth of the season and his first in 11 games. He tapped a puck out of the air that Dion Phaneuf shot from the point that bounced off a Philly player in front.

The Senators got off to a better start. Outshot 11-8 by the Flyers, this was a tight-checking game, but the Senators held a 1-0 lead with a goal coming on the power play.

It was the club’s third goal with the man advantage in three straight games. Yup, that’s a first.

The Senators opened the scoring at 8:23 when Hoffman, who picked up right where he left off after recording a hat-trick Tuesday, scored his eighth of the season with Claude Giroux in the box. He took a pass from Mark Stone and fired it by Mason high on the glove side into an open net.

“We had a chance in overtime but we couldn’t capitalize. It hurts losing that one point,” Dzingel said.

The Senators host the Florida Panthers Saturday to close out this homestand.